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| En saga | |
|---|---|
| Tone poem by Jean Sibelius | |
 The composer (c. 1891) | |
| Opus | 9 |
| Composed | 1891–1892, rev. 1902 |
| Publisher | Fazer & Westerlund (1903)[1][a] |
| Duration | 18 mins. (orig. 22 mins.)[3] |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 16 February 1893[4] |
| Location | Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland |
| Conductor | Jean Sibelius |
| Performers | Helsinki Orchestral Association |
En saga (in Finnish: Satu; occasionally translated to English as, variously, A Fairy Tale, A Saga, or A Legend), Op. 9, is a single-movement tone poem for orchestra written from 1891 to 1892 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The piece, which likely began as a septet or octet for flute, clarinet, and string ensemble before evolving into an orchestral tone poem, premiered on 16 February 1893 in Helsinki with Sibelius conducting the Helsinki Orchestral Association. A decade later in 1902, Sibelius substantially revised En saga in response to an invitation from Ferruccio Busoni to conduct the piece in Berlin. It thus stands alongside The Lemminkäinen Suite (Op. 22), the Violin Concerto (Op. 47), The Oceanides (Op. 73), and the Fifth Symphony (Op. 82) as one of the most overhauled works in his œuvre. The Berlin concert, which occurred a fortnight after Robert Kajanus had premiered the revised version in Helsinki on 2 November, finally brought Sibelius the German breakthrough he had long desired.
En saga is without program or literary source. Nevertheless, the adventurous, evocative character of the music has encouraged many listeners to offer their own interpretations, among them a fantasy landscape (such as that by the Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela), a hunting expedition,[5] a bard's storytelling,[citation needed] and the essence of Finnish people.[6] Sibelius routinely declined to state a program, although in the 1930s, he conceded that, if one must find an inspiration, the tone poem owed its nature not to The Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, but rather to Iceland's Eddas. By the 1940s, however, Sibelius had reverted to his previous position, describing the work instead as "the expression of a certain state of mind"—one with an unspecified, "painful" autobiographical component—for which "all literary interpretations [were therefore] totally alien".[7]
Critics have largely praised En saga as a masterpiece of "astonishing power and originality" that, stylistically, exhibits Sibelius's "personal brand of musical primitivism". Moreover, the revised version of the tone poem is often described as being of superior craftsmanship relative to the youthful rawness of its predecessor. The first (and to date only) recording of the original version was made in 1995 by Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. A typical performance of the final version of the piece lasts about 18 minutes, some 4 minutes fewer than its predecessor.
- ^ Dahlström 2003, p. 29.
- ^ Dahlström 2003, p. xxiv.
- ^ Dahlström 2003, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Dahlström 2003, p. 28.
- ^ Goss 2009, p. 178.
- ^ Wicklund 2014, p. 35–37.
- ^ Wicklund 2014, p. 40.
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